Chapter 1.
Dan can feel the adrenaline surging through his veins a moment before his eyes snap open. His head is hazy but any prior thoughts or dreams fade away, leaving only remnant wisps of impressions swiftly escaping his grasp, and he opens his eyes. A soft, blue light, ebbs in front of him, reflecting off the glass window in front of him. Blinking several times, his mind flickers into a semblance of logical thought and he remembers the single direction that was hammered into him some long time ago.
Squeeze your hands.
He does, and with a low hiss, the glass lifts upwards and then moves to the side, the dark interior of a stasis room revealing itself to Dan, complete with three empty pods and the one he is currently inhabiting. The cuffs unlock and slide off his waist, legs and forearms, allowing for him to half-fall, half-step out of the pod and onto the steel grill floor. His muscles have already been massaged and reconditioned for the past five weeks, in anticipation of his waking date. He flexes his arms a few times, the artificial exercise almost good enough to simulate real fitness, but the weariness of immobility aches somewhere deep in his bones. Dan chuckles a little to himself as he recalls the first time he came home from the space station and could barely walk, having spent the past few months absorbed in his work and neglecting to exercise as was recommended.
With a crick of his neck, he sets off, his fingerprint coding to open the door setting of the lighting, and soon the ship is humming with energy. By the time he arrives at the flight deck, Dan's body feels almost back to normal and no worse for wear, and his mind is making a sound attempt to do the same. Stasis is always harder on the mind than the body; years of unconscious thought will muddle you up a little. Fortunately, his operational memory is barely affected, and he easily slides into the captains seat and switches the ship off autopilot, flight simulations and text books learnt long ago readily supplying the correct information for checking velocity, fuel and distance to destination.
He's closer than expected, only a few minutes and he'll be pulling into the planet's orbit - their calculations were always estimations at best, and he should be grateful that he was woken properly. Emerging from stasis and dealing with a crash landing is hardly the best way to start your day. Dan straightens in the chair, properly strapping his belt and steadies the thrusters, levelling out the ship masterfully and entering smoothly.
With no ground stations to signal to, or to reference landing from, Dan is left with no choice but to make a blind landing. It's hardly impossible, but less than ideal in terms of safety, for him and anyone below. A quick scan identifies a fairly large body of water that seems suitable and nodding confidently to the empty flight deck, Dan locks in their trajectory,
Checking that he still has enough fuel, he disengages the cargo doors, fires up the RCS thrusters and angles the ship to fall tail first, gravity and drag taking hold. Once he's satisfied with the angle, Dan switches on the OMS engines, shuddering in his seat as the ship slows down a little. So far, everything is going perfectly to plan. It's the best ship of its class and he is a brilliant pilot, but every step of this mission is so far beyond human space travel that Dan almost feels their success as yet must be the result of sheer luck, as opposed to scientific ingenuity.
This part is the most serene, falling through the sky of a brand new planet. He has little control and he's too far from the surface to consider gliding yet, so he waits and watches, focusing on regulating his breathing that somehow became erratic within the past few minutes. This must be what the first astronauts felt like, Dan reasons, so far from anything familiar or safe. Just him and his ship, alone on the edge of a brand new world.
He smirks to himself - they weren't actually alone, there was always the crew and their ground control team at the very least. This was, in that respect, completely new. This ship was never made to be manned by a single person, but there was hardly anyone else who was volunteering to join him, and he'd have never accepted the mission with a crew forced into participation by the academy. But, looking over his shoulder, it's hard not to wish for another soul to be sitting in any of the chairs around him, another pair of eyes to share in the incredible sights, another heart to quicken as the unknown approaches.
Then, from nowhere, his left hand twitches, fingers spasming from their grip on the handle, and the ship jolts slightly - not enough to angle out of the fall but enough to slightly alter his path, as he fumbles to pull the nose back to a straight fall. Biting his lip, Dan reaches into the small pocket on his sleeve, pulling out a small tube of orange pills and, stabilising the navigation with one hand and deftly unscrewing the top of the container with the other, he swallows two pills, before shoving the tube back in his pocket.
He knew there had to be something he'd forgotten.
Who wouldn't?
Frustrated by his forgetfulness, the kind of mistake that could be fatal, Dan quickly checks the external surface status. It's higher than ideal, but still below hyperthermic. He knows all too well how delicate the maneuvers are, but it seems the slight alteration has left him no worse for the wear, luckily. He eyes his left hand, now innocently still. It had started in his hands back on earth, for so long put down as stress or exhaustion. If only he could have woken to forget the whole affair, the diagnosis, everything that followed.
Before long, the blue skies disappear and thick clouds engulf the ship, blocking all views and rendering the screens useless, displaying only endless, blinding whiteness. It's impossible to tell how long the cloud will last, there's no sight of anything below. He free falls, squinting into nothingness and receiving nothing in return. The clouds pass for moments, sweeping by in loose burrs and there's nothing he can do. It's eerie, but peaceful, and of course it cannot last.
Colours burst into his visual field vibrantly - greens and yellows and brown; but not blue. Shit.
The change in pressures hits his hull and a loud crack resonates throughout the ship, but Dan doesn't pause to think about the damage to the metalwork; this was only never intended to be a return trip. All pressures seem to be directed to flipping him over - the entire console and his chair are shuddering with the force, but he fights (does his best) to keep his hands steady, pulling up the nose an iota higher, eyes trained on the screen.
The ocean is winking on his left side, too far off now to try landing there, so the greenery of the forest will have to do. Dan just hopes that there's nothing living amongst the trees. Normally he'd not go near a habitable field without running preliminary thermal imaging or trying for a gamma-screen, but with less than 600 meters between him and the surface, there's barely enough time for him to flick out the parachutes and brake the orbiter before he's lost in a flurry of leaves, branches splintering around his ship as it etches a jagged path into the forest.
The lights go out but Dan keeps a firm grip on the navigators. He's driving blind, screwing his eyes shut and tensing his body, ready to absorb the shock of impact- but it never comes. A few moments later the orbiter shuts off and the ship comes to an unsteady stop, swaying slightly in the precarious embrace of large branches. Despite the unconventional runway, the ship has landed safely. A light flashes on, blinking in the dark to remind Dan to stay seated while the engines cool off, and he sits back, finally releasing the controls.
His fingers are tingling, but this time he knows the sensation well: anticipation. The probability of making it this far was always slim; he'd avoided building up hope for such a long time that it had been easy to assume he'd never greet this planet alive. The adrenaline is fading, but he can barely stand to stay the 20 minutes on board until it's safe to disembark. He doesn't want to waste a moment. There's new air to breath, new grass to feel beneath his feet, new water to taste and feel run between his fingers-
We'd prefer for you to remain here, and be as comfortable as possible.
That's what the doctors had said, as if comfort was reassuring or a substitute for years of his life that could have been. A sterile room, with restrictions in place, (mostly to protect visitors), a glorious supply of morphine and as much sympathy and pastel 'get well' cards as irony could provide. It was assumed that time well spent was time with family and friends, pain free and earning as many minutes as possible alive. But what they didn't seem to understand was that none of those minutes would mean anything if they were spent lying in a bed, wasting away. They'd tried to stop him, many times, but he was still physically and mentally able to fly, with medications ready to combat any symptoms as they arose and determination far stronger than any scrawled signature on a medical certificate.
The red light is still flashing in the corner of his vision, teasing him with its consistency, and it's too hard to remain seated any longer. Dan springs to his feet and starts pacing, back and forth, running his hand along the top of his seat with each length of the deck. Despite having no recollections of his immobilisation, it feels so good to move; muscle and bone and motion all at his command. This, at least, he has some control over. Pacing is calming and it wears away the minutes until the engines are cool enough to disembark without poisoning his lungs.
When the countdown flashes at two minutes to go, Dan unfastens a day pack from under the desk and makes his way to the cargo deck, his footsteps echoing into the empty hall, green light filtering in through the small windows that line the path. Nervous energy ripples in each step, building his strength far more than any stasis machine ever could. The door is still sealed shut when he arrives, and the last few moments of waiting pass with paced breathing and closed eyes, until the shrill siren sounds into the silence and the door slides open with a heavy groan. A strong breeze brings a flurry of spade-like leaves flying through the air, skimming past his face and carrying them up into the
Without a moments hesitation, Dan jumps forward and out of the ship, his feet landing softly on the mossy earth of this strange new world.
It begins! Thank you for reading :) links to the artwork for this fic are on my profile and you should definitely check them out! Also please let me know what you thought!
Until next time
xxx panfs